“Yeah, Sheriff. I’ve observed problems.” His voice was chill. “Last night our Sojourner Chapel was attacked by white men who threw Coca-Cola bottles that smashed the entrance of the church as Shiloh citizens were leaving a peaceful meeting. I watched the attackers’ cars return to the Kilbrew station. When I confronted Kilbrew about the attack, he was threatening. We’re about to have our first open-to-the-public organizing meeting, and we expect real trouble. Three of our SNCC workers have disappeared.” He halted. “That’s why we’re here, asking for your help.”
Haley remained silent, studying the two men before him. “It’s right you came here. Violence in Magnolia County is not going to be tolerated, and this office is going to see that Magnolia remains peaceful. But I can’t keep my eye on every redneck who is unhappy.” He rose from his chair and went to a green file case in the corner, extracted several manila folders, and laid them on the desk. “These are letters sent to the mayor, by Shiloh citizens who are not violent. They’re solid citizens, old families, complaining about your agitators invading their property and stirring up trouble with their Nigras. They want something done about it.” He resumed his seat behind the desk. “The mayor was good enough to share them with his sheriff,” he said, his voice chilly. “There’s an election coming up this fall.”
“Agitators?” Jimmy snapped, “My agitators are American citizens who have to go out on the plantations to explain to a lot of the sharecroppers that they have rights, guaranteed by the Constitution, to vote in American elections. The only way they can do that is to get out there, where the ‘solid citizen’ owners don’t want them to be. I don’t think agitator is the right word to use about that. But I can’t promise that we won’t keep on doing that until they get registered. Hell, once they’re registered they can even vote for the mayor if they want to!”
Haley smiled for the first time. “I’ll be sure and tell the mayor that next time he calls.” The smile vanished. “Where and when is this public meeting you’re worried about?”
“On Sunday next, seven o’clock, at the old Baptist schoolhouse.”
“There will be no trouble. My officers will be there.”
Mendelsohn stood up. “I’d suggest that they stay outside, Sheriff. I’ve covered meetings like this before. If the officers are inside, a lot of the Negroes won’t speak up or take part in the meeting. The people who come there have a right to set the rules about who is allowed inside. It’s private property, and the Baptists have offered it to the Summer Project.”
Haley said dryly, “Thought you weren’t going to be part of this conversation, Mendelsohn. Thought only Mack was going to speak.”
Ted held the sheriff’s eyes for a beat. “It’s not my job, Sheriff. I’m just a reporter. I listen, take notes, and then tell the great American public what’s really happening, and who’s doing what to make it happen. What I feel I try very hard to keep to myself. That’s what I get poorly paid to do.”
“You like your work, Mendelsohn?”
“Yes, I do. Do you, Sheriff?”
“Sometimes,” Haley said, standing up. The meeting was over.
On the way to the Claybourne plantation, Ted turned from the highway on to a straight patch of gravel that sliced through dizzying rows of young cotton plants. After a hundred yards he slowed the Chevy, caught up in the beauty of the green vista that seemed as vast as the sky that arched above, wondering what this must be like when the plants burst into cotton in the fall. In the distance, tiny figures moved between the rows, bobbing like dark corks as they edged forward, chopping out the weeds. In the overheated stillness he could hear the chunk, chunk, chunk of the hoes.
At an ancient weeping willow, the gravel road curved gently into the shade of a tall stand of old oaks surrounding a stately plantation house. It didn’t look like Tara. Not a grand ante-bellum mansion that was built before Abraham Lincoln was practicing law. No, it was almost defiantly Victorian, a white soaring filigreed eminence that could be comfortably at home in Newport, Rhode Island, or on Beacon Hill in Boston. It spoke of old money, of an unquestioned sense of entitlement. Carpetbagger money? He’d have to ask. No great white columns like the ones David Selznick had arranged. Beautiful, expensive, comfortably inviting, but decidedly not Tara.
Ted had to smile, feeling relieved. On the broad, deeply shaded veranda embracing the house, he saw the woman from the gas station. Dressed in a pale green linen shift, she rose awkwardly from a porch swing and came forward to greet him. Not Scarlett, but a smiling Willy Claybourne.
“You found the Claybournes, and nobody chased you that I can see from here.” Her eyes elaborately searched the empty driveway.
He grinned and nodded. “And none of the townsfolk have arrived yet to string me up.”
“I heard you on the gravel. Come on in out of this heat. Welcome, Ted Mendelsohn!”
“Mendelsohn’s too much to handle in this humidity. Brevity is all, my editor, Max, keeps telling me. Just Ted if it’s all right with you, Mrs. Claybourne.”
Her smile was impish. “What’s good for the cat is good for the kitten. If you’re Ted, then I’m Willy. Em’s inside. Nobody’s ever called her Emily. And I want you to meet my husband.” She hesitated. “Lucas Claybourne. He’s more traditional than I am. He’ll likely call you Mr. Mendelsohn.”
“And what do I call him?”
She slipped her hand under his arm and opened the door. “You could call him lord of the manor.” She smiled wickedly. “But I wouldn’t if I were you. I think Mr. Claybourne will do nicely for now.”
Together, they moved down a cool, wide entry hall past four large, idealized oils of antebellum harbors in New England. Facing the entry to the living room a single portrait held a silent, self-important vigil. The man, painted in his elder years, was dressed in a great cloak and standing on the deck of a three-masted vessel under full sail. Ted stopped before the portrait, bursting with questions. “And who is this? He looks like Cotton Mather!”
“This gentleman is the very first Claybourne to reach the Delta,” Willy explained. “Henry Percival Claybourne, great-great-grandfather to my husband, Lucas, on his father’s side. Henry Percival was a very successful ship owner who made a fortune carrying supplies to the occupying Northern troops down here from his home port in Plymouth, Massachusetts.” Noting the astonished look on Ted’s face, she grinned. “One nation, indivisible, Ted! Everybody came from some place.”
As they entered the living room, a large, heavyset man in his late twenties turned from his conversation with Emily. With his rumpled dark brown hair, soiled khakis, and muddy field boots, Lucas Claybourne looked like a slightly aging running guard from Ole Miss. He was deeply tanned from the Delta sun, a man who would be most at home outside, perhaps a little uncomfortable among the colorful chintz and floral draperies of Willy Claybourne’s living room. He stood up, frowning, from a couch. A Bermuda fireplace held great pots of flowering fuchsia. Hands in his pockets, he quietly regarded Willy and the journalist.
“Luke, honey, come meet Mr. Mendelsohn.”
Shake hands with the son of a bitch? Let Willy do it. His eyes remained still.
“Lucas!” Her voice was cutting.
